


αὐτὸ, κι ἐκεῖνο, καὶ τοῦτο

by Ibbyliv



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Canon Era, M/M, Modern Era, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 18:23:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1047115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ibbyliv/pseuds/Ibbyliv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We were alive again, at the beach after so long. We lay on the sand and wrapped our arms around each other. Our foreheads united and I could not think, could not do anything but drink him in, each breath as it came, his lips against mine, the breathtaking sound of his laughter, his feminine feet as they fell on the sand. This, and this, and this. Him and me breathing in unison holding each other tight and staring at the colors of the dawn in the sky, inhaling the scent of the sea, rendered peacefully asleep by the lullaby of the waves on the shore.</p><p>Once he became a hero. Then twice. He had told me a secret: he was going to be the first happy hero. He asked me to swear it, because I would be the reason.<br/>The third time none of us knew, or so I thought. Maybe this time we'd both be heroes. Maybe this time we’d be happy.<br/>Maybe.</p><p>I had sworn it. </p><p>He was always better with words than I.</p>
            </blockquote>





	αὐτὸ, κι ἐκεῖνο, καὶ τοῦτο

**Author's Note:**

> I finished the SoA yesterday and have been a miserable, incoherent mess since then, choking in my own tears so I had to do this. Shameless overuse of several fragments from the book. No really, I'm a little ashamed. And sorry. Apologies.

I am made of memories.

The first time we both knew yet each of us died alone. A body dissolving into ashes, a shadow that resembled nothing more but the smoke swirling above the fire. I had sworn upon his eyes, green flecked with gold, that I would never leave him, that I would be his for as long as he would let me, yet he was leaving me now. A body carried by the nymphs wrapped in the holy veils of the sea as the mortals wept and the dead silenced. A shadow, watching from a distance through the looking glass, underwater, suffocating without even possessing lungs to be filled with water. I begged to be given peace. They didn’t hear. No one did, but her. I could finally challenge her with my thoughts or their shadows, I didn’t exactly know then. She could not harm me anymore. I built you again from the very beginning, I wanted you to rise, I wanted you to live.

I felt his ashes falling on mine like we felt the snowflakes falling on our eyelashes and the tips of our noses in Pelion. You lay next to me in the same way you did when we slept together, your body heavy and numb from the exhaustion, your breathing peaceful and steady, your face innocent and softened as if you hadn’t killed a thousand fathers, lovers and sons, eyelids heavy with fair eyelashes, cheeks smooth and lips curvy and tender. It was dark when we found each other again, dark, quiet and peaceful, like Chiron’s cave. It was dead. I don’t know if we were too. I could feel the dull throbbing of your pulse, transparent and distant like an echo, yet closer to me than it had been when our solid, sweaty bodies were pressed together, moving in unison in our own, frantic battle.

In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands met and light spilt in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.

And then we slept. Limbs tangled together, foreheads united, breathing steady. We had found peace.

When I woke up, he wasn’t there. A desperate cry piercing the darkness, yet it was muted. No one heard, not me. It was different, my life was different. The room was small, so different from Chiron’s cave, from Peleus’ palace, from our camps on the fevered sand of Troy. The blankets were heavy and I was covered in sweat in my nightshirt, my curly hair plastered on my forehead. A chair and a small desk, an unfinished canvas of darkness and fire and grief, red paint dripping like blood on the floor. Near my bed a bowl full of water and a towel, under of it a bottle of green.

Absinthe.

I was a different man, yet I was the same. The world stopped in a violent explosion of light. This time I could see better. I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. He was different, more of a god and less of a man, yet more mortal than ever before. He venerated people, he’d never slaughter them yet he was more savage than before, harsher, prouder than _Aristos Acheon._ He couldn’t play the lyre, nor the piano and the fiddle. His music now was his voice, and he didn’t even need to sing. He spoke words of fire, captivating and mesmerizing. I could hear Nestor’s advice in it, Chiron's opinions echoed through his lips. _No man is worth more than another._ He magnetized the crowds, he stirred even the most sceptical of souls. Every soul but mine.

 _He_ was the sun now. No Apollo was here to help Paris aim to his mortal heel, and Paris meant an entirely different thing: a city that he worshipped, a land that he adored.

This time was different. I drank wine and ate cheese and bread in the café with our friends. I ate figs remembering our childish contests, but I ate them alone. He wasn’t mine. He had already given his heart to someone else, to no Dedameia or Briseis. It was Patria that had cruelly taken him away from me. I was not _Philtatos_ anymore. That was Combeferre, maybe Courfeyrac. This time he didn’t remember. I was nothing for him, so I decided to embrace my new destiny and believe in it. I believed so deeply that I lost the ability to believe in anything else. There was no prophecy this time. There was no need for it. I was a drunk, obnoxious Kalchas myself. I could shout one prophecy after the other loudly in between the drops of poison that I most willingly took. He was doomed, I could see him marching straight to his death and I kept saying it, never expecting him to listen, just to feel I had done so. I couldn’t do much anymore. I couldn’t heal, not others, never myself. All I seeked was oblivion, dark clouds to fog my feverish nightmares and help me sleep, for I had no one to lie with at night, no slender waist to wrap my arm around, no beating chest to rest my head upon, no eyes to gaze the stars with mine, lying on the ground with our fingers entangled, the gentle summer breeze playing with our hair. I was alone, me and the demons burning in my chest. I didn’t quite understand the reason I needed to live a second time, I didn’t understand the purpose of life, that stupid invention of I knew not whom. I had told him the first time that if he died, it would not take long for me to follow. I promised I would follow him again, and again and again and I knew I would die alone.

The second time only one of us knew yet we died together. When I finally managed to sleep a dreamless night it was the light fading around me that woke me up with a gasp, the horrible aftertaste of self-loathe in my mouth, the air smelling of fire and gunpowder and death, raw and damp on our skins. He was standing there, proud and wild, his glorious face covered in blood that was not his, the same blood I had cleaned of his skin before, the same calm expression on his face. He was cradling the red banner of freedom, waiting to be finished, always willing, always careless, always devoted. I had said I’d follow and the world stopped. Our eyes met through the guns. I was with him. I believed, solely and impeccably in everything he’d said, everything he’d loved because it was his, it was his kingdom even though he despised royalty so passionately, it was his world and the only world I could ever be a part of. I knew it then, I saw it in that smile that beheld all the life we had lost together, that beheld the hubris _I_ was the one who committed this time, a mortal trying to touch the sun, a slave begging Thetis for a place near him in the Pantheon or even in the underworld, in Hades' kingdom of ash and dead smoke. He remembered. He gave me his hand and I clasped it tightly, begging for permission.

He remembered. I barely managed to think that maybe, just _maybe_ I didn’t want to die anymore. I wished us to live, to overthrow the government and change the world. It passed through my eyes like a shadow of a dream, while the report sounded. _He remembered._ We could hide from the world in a small house at the Provence, I could wake up to his glorious sight bathed by the sun every morning, we could have flowers in our garden and play, spitting olive pits at each other, coupling in the moonlight every night, on a humble yet comfortable bed. We had a second chance to decide. We could live long and in peace, or we could choose Troy once again and live short, but in fame. There was still time.

There wasn't.

He was still smiling as if he could read my thought when everything went dark.

Fame wouldn’t come this time.

The third time none of us knew. Or so I thought.

Every night we fucked. It was rough and greedy, muffled grunts against pillows, raspy sighs pressed on clammy skins, limbs wrapped around waists, drawing closer to each other, fingers desperately grasping on damp sheets. It was wild yet rhythmical, like well-rehearsed dance steps, or those required on a battlefield. It was like we knew each other’s body so well, every hollow, every muscle and every bone, every line and every curve on our lips like a mantra, but we both knew that we’d just met.

We were wrecked. He could sense his wings being cut, slowly but steadily, he was getting disappointed day by day but he never gave up, he stood up high and this time I was with him, not for him but for the cause, for the amazing friends I had been blessed with after the fiasco of my childhood as a miserable wallflower, for the need to fight at last, for liberty and equality, to become the fighter I never was. I was on recovery and my friends helped, all but you. We were fucking every night but you were still distant, almost dark. You bedded me and gave me all of you, released yourself inside of me, filled me up in every way and shared with me your most intimate moments, yet you didn’t let me in and you didn’t extend your hand. You respected me in the same way that I did but you weren’t there. I wanted to help you spread your wings again, I needed to see you fly above us all like you always did yet I did not have enough strength in me to try anymore. For once, I managed to focus on myself. I had help. People cared for me. I steadily ceased drinking. I took up on my music again. I could play the piano and the guitar. When I first heard that he used to play the harp when he was little I couldn’t stop laughing. It seemed atrociously to me, ridiculous, so much that my laughter turned hysterical. _Who the fuck plays the harp nowadays? What next? Did he use to play the lyre as well?_ That was all I knew for him apart from what everyone else did. We didn’t talk much, just tasted each other hungrily, teeth clashing, wet tongues exploring mouths territories they felt they’d invaded in before. It was alright. I started to heal. First myself. Others would come later.

I never stopped giving myself to him. Everything he needed, whatever it was. He needed my body, my flesh heated against his own. Sometimes it hurt a little, yet it was fine. That was what he wanted and I gave it to him most eagerly. It was a deal, it took away the need to watch bad porn on the TV and it gave me the need to drink again; our friends feared I would relapse yet they didn’t know the reasons even though Jehan and Éponine looked suspicious. If that was the only way I could have him, I’d have him still, a hundred million times.

It was a protest when it hit me like the stray sunrays behind the clouds that reflected on his golden hair and the tear gas that blinded my eyes. I wanted to fight for what I believed in and for what I did not, for everything and for nothing. I was on fire, my pulse throbbing in the walls of my head like in those of a helmet. The sirens of the police were horns, the extension of my hand was an invisible sword, a bow and an arrow. The hammering of my heart echoed no different than the clattering of an armor, the police barricade was a stone wall and I was climbing. They tried to push me once, twice. They couldn’t. I heard his cries piercing my ears. It was alright. He didn’t need to worry. I could climb again.

I fell. Perhaps this is all I did, I thought – climbed walls and fell from them.

The last thing I thought was: Achilles.

He was there when I opened my eyes in a white room that reminded me of Peleus’ palace but smelt of iodium and blood. _Machaon and Podalirius’ camp._ I was delirious, hallucinating from the drugs. Nothing made sense anymore.

It was a hospital room and he was there, tears streaming down his smooth, almost childish cheeks, his green eyes stricken with an expression of stubborn anger. He held me tight, apologized, cursed, said how he hated me. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t need to. He whispered in my neck and I felt his warm breath on my skin.

“Pa-tro-clus,” he said. He was always better with words than I.

We were alive again, at the beach after so long. He took off his trainers, I took of my boots. We lay on the sand and wrapped our arms around each other. Our foreheads united, our lips met. I could not think, could not do anything but drink him in, each breath as it came, the soft movements of his lips, the breathtaking sound of his laughter, his feminine feet as they fell on the sand. It was a miracle. We had seen each other naked so many times before but now it was as if I got to touch him all over from the very beginning. My hands on his firm thighs caused him to fever as if he was still a virgin. His torso, the soft skin under his knees, the hollow of his throat and the prominent hipbones. I felt him being reborn again, I smelt the oils he once used on his feet, pomegranate and sandalwood; the salt of clean sweat meddling with that of the fevered sea and the burning sun above us. We were hot as we kissed, so hot and I thought of our bare feet strucking the snow in the winter. So many things to think, so many memories to discover. The pattern of his breathing that I never quite got to memorize, as each of us used to return home when we woke up in the morning. The way my name – _names-_ sounded from his lips, all new and different even if nothing had really changed. The way my hand felt into his own, as if I was holding the world in my palm and the whole world was him. This, and this, and this. Him and me breathing in unison holding each other tight and staring at the colors of the dawn in the sky, inhaling the scent of the sea, rendered peacefully asleep by the lullaby of the waves on the shore.

“How did you know?” I asked him. He smiled softly, so different from what he’d been a few days ago.

“I always knew,” he muttered, “ever since you walked in the café, loud and sarcastic and obnoxious. Ever since the protest about the LGBTQA rights, you and your ridiculous slogans.” He gave a small smile. “I couldn’t get close. I couldn’t let you know. You didn’t remember, I knew you didn’t. I hated myself for having you as I did, but it was the only way I could have you. I’ve been selfish in the past. And proud. Forgive me.”

I didn’t hear a word of his apology. I’d never blamed him in first place. “How?” I asked again.

He leaned forward, brushing his lips against my own. They tasted of salt and coffee and cigarettes, if I lingered a little more I could feel the figs and the blood. I didn’t need to. “This,” he murmured, smiling against my skin. His fingers caressed the scruff on my rough cheek before cupping my face and lowering his hands on my neck, on my sides and abdomen, on my hips, between my thighs, “and this,” the same air of mischief on his innocent, youthful face. His hands moved back up to my chest, resting above my pounding heart, “and this.”

Once he became a hero. Then twice. He had told me a secret: he was going to be the first happy hero. He asked me to promise him I would be the reason. I promised.

Now we could both be heroes, that's what he said. “Swear it,” he said, touching my knuckles with his hand. “Swear it.”

“I swear it,” I said, utterly lost in him.

_I felt like I could eat the world raw._

The third time none of us knew, or so I thought. Maybe this time we would live. Maybe this time we’d be happy.

Maybe.

I had sworn it. 

He was always better in words than I.

**Author's Note:**

> The pretentious title means 'This, and that, and this' in Greek. I'm so sorry, I just happen to be Greek and I couldn't help a little variety.


End file.
